Cyprus-Forum.com

[BirKibrisli]

Due to work and family commitments I am regularly away from my computer for days at a time,so sometimes I do not catch up with new threads till the heat has been taken out of them...So I have only just yesterday read certain threads in the Classifieds section...

I want to tell you about the times I have been stung by two conmen who were my work colleagues....One of them took me for 7,5000 AUD and the other for 2,000 AUD...The biger one was the nicest most charming fellow you could ever hope to meet!And he not only gave me the most moving hard-luck story,but also a check written out in my name (with 10% interest I said I didn't want),to be cashed 6 months from the date on it...When I cashed it it bounced,but by then he was nowhere to be found...He had skipped the country oweing literally hundreds of thousands of dollars....and the news was that he had been just one step ahead of loan sharks due to a gambling problem...

The other person had lost his job and was in dire straights literally so I lent him the money to tie him over till he found a job....When he did find a job,he simply forgot about the loan,and over time stopped being my friend...I know where he lives,but will never ask for my money back.I think 2,000 dollars is not too high a price to find out about who your true friends are...

The moral of the story is that these experiences have not stopped me from lending money to my friends if they ask,and everybody else have always honoured their promises...But I have made a few cautionary rules...I never lend more money than I can afford to lose...and I do not expect to get it back...

[Get Real!]

But I have made a few cautionary rules...I never lend more money than I can afford to lose...and I do not expect to get it back...

Likewise. I never give something I want back.

[Aphrodite18]

Thank you for sharing that with us.. my own feelings on this is that sadly many people get taken in by con people.. it is such a mass industry now with the net and ID fraud etc. makes it hard to believe people anymore - really. The worst thing about it is it causes so much cynicism so everyone loses! What is wrong with people?? Must be awful to be so obsessed with acquiring money and stuff that you don't care about your own self respect and reputation - what a shallow pointless existence!! My mother used to say it won't do them any good - in the longer term it is true... as none of it has any real value.

[zan]

It does show how some are more gullible than others.......



Sorry you lost so much money Bir.

[devil]

406 years ago, Shakespeare wrote the following, foreseeing this bloody forum.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Hamlet (1601) act 1, sc. 3, l. 68

"Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;"

This means read the forums but never reply unless you have something useful to say

"Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment."

Never reply in kind when I, or anyone else, say(s) you are a bloody idiot or worse.

"Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,"


Birkibrisli has found this out the hard way. In my old age, I have found out the same. I never lend nor borrow, not even commercially. I may give, though, but only on the understanding that it is a gift and not a loan.

"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Oh, if only some contributors here would take this to heart! The corollary is that those who are false lose all respect and their posts here may not be read, even when they contain an element of truth.

Here endeth the first lesson from the Devil himself, sitting in judgement!

[Aphrodite18]

Very wise... would that we could all be so - all the time...x

[BirKibrisli]

It does show how some are more gullible than others.......



Sorry you lost so much money Bir.

Sure,Zan...I wonder how many more lol's you'd have put had you been glad...

To follow up the original story...The guy who skipped the country owing people hundreds of thousands of dollars supposedly died of cancer a few years later,in a country very dear to some Cypriots' heart...I didn't believe it then and I don't still believe it...How sad for him,is it not???

[BirKibrisli]

Thank you for sharing that with us.. my own feelings on this is that sadly many people get taken in by con people.. it is such a mass industry now with the net and ID fraud etc. makes it hard to believe people anymore - really. The worst thing about it is it causes so much cynicism so everyone loses! What is wrong with people?? Must be awful to be so obsessed with acquiring money and stuff that you don't care about your own self respect and reputation - what a shallow pointless existence!! My mother used to say it won't do them any good - in the longer term it is true... as none of it has any real value.

In my experience these are truly desperate people,Aphrodite...
And unless they make it a career,and we won't talk about them as they must certainly have psychological problems,conmen are individuals whose lives have spun out of control due to an addiction,usually drugs or gambling...They often mean well at the beginning,and make an attempt to return the money or whatever,but if they are unable to overcome their addictions things just get progressively out of their control...
My colleague, the conman I mentioned above left a wife and three young children to flee the country...I was close enough to the wife to know the pain and suffering she went through...Part of existentialist human condition I guess...

[zan]

It does show how some are more gullible than others.......



Sorry you lost so much money Bir.

Sure,Zan...I wonder how many more lol's you'd have put had you been glad...

To follow up the original story...The guy who skipped the country owing people hundreds of thousands of dollars supposedly died of cancer a few years later,in a country very dear to some Cypriots' heart...I didn't believe it then and I don't still believe it...How sad for him,is it not???

Come on Bir...Have you lost your sense of humor?


The was meant to be the clue that it was a reference to your thinking on the Cyprob and your gullibility. The lols were to show that I was laughing with you.......

[BirKibrisli]

Sorry,mate...since I do not consider myself gullible on Cyprob it went over my head...